The Inherent Danger of Girl's Night Out
by 1Styx and Stones1
Summary: In which Jade compares her life to a Taylor Swift song, has a mental breakdown, and Tori finds herself somehow picking up the pieces in classic click-flick fashion. Everything sugary, clichéd, and bizarre ensues. Post-breakup. Friendship-fic, with heavy doses of Bade.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm kind of horrified that I'm posting this, but during a reread, I found it kind of hilarious and nerdy, and I needed to celebrate Bade's reunion somehow, so here... Have a pointless, weirdly lengthy friendship story of undeterminable origins whose end has yet to be decided. You're welcome :)**

**A few clarifications - this is pre-reunion, probably AU, and my head-canon regarding Tori, based solely off her schlumpy glasses-n-braids appearance in Jade Gets Crushed, etc., is that she's secretly kind of a total loser, albeit endearing and sweet. That's all I can think to add. So. Yeah. Enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd be too busy crying that it was ending to be productive... OH WAIT I AM**

* * *

In the end, it was probably the fault of the banana's incompetence. And the Advil. The Advil admittedly played a part in it as well.

Or maybe it was Tori's fault, for having a tendency to get over-sentimental. Or maybe it was L. M. Montgomery's fault, for being such a freaking genius and creating like _the coolest_ fictional heroine of all time.

Or maybe it was the moon's fault.

After all, Tori had occasionally tuned in to her Health teacher's ramblings, enough so to have learned a bit about the lunar cycle and a certain time of the month that was oft accompanied by mood swings and crippling cramps.

And then she'd immediately tuned back _out _again, as the vaguely-mustachioed woman had then moved on to even more disturbing, embarrassing subjects involving puberty and the splendor of the human body.

But the point is that, really, Tori wasn't to blame.

It was the moon's fault, for giving her cramps. And then both bananas and pain medication - of both chewable and liquid, cherry-flavored and grape - failed her.

In times of such bodily discomfort, the only feasible chance at relief would be to go back to her childhood years - when her life was so much more uncomplicated and her chest a great deal flatter - via an epic, all-encompassing book series.

She fell asleep in the middle of a particularly delicious plight involving accidental underage drinking, feeling slightly less miserable than before - flat on her back, in her dowdiest bum clothes and glasses, with the book open on her stomach and the taste of bananas ripe on her breath - and awoke to just about the worst imaginable scene that her over-emotional, temporarily unstable mind could concoct.

Jade West, barefoot, clad in an over-sized sweatshirt and skimpy pajama shorts, was climbing through her window.

Tori fumbled wildly for her glasses, knocking the well-worn paperback from the bed, as she wondered if this was possibly the result of the rather haphazard cocktail of pain medication and tropical fruit she had downed so recklessly earlier.

She kind of doubted it, though, because her subconscious, even in its most frenzied days, was not at all likely to conjure this particular scenario - Jade, in her room, in pajamas, with grass stains on her ankles and mascara streaks beneath her ice blue eyes.

"Um. Hi."

Jade, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall beside the open window, nodded casually. "Vega."

Tori opened her mouth and promptly closed it again. She creaked into a sitting position and was relieved to find the multitude of pain meds seemed to have finally kicked in, as very little pain accompanied her movement.

Silence. A cricket, outside the window, began to chirp appropriately.

"Um. You're in my room," Tori said finally, cocking her head and wondering what was going on. Maybe she'd contracted some rare tropical disease from all those bananas…

"Yep." Jade popped the 'p' with some relish, but soon resumed looking contemplative and slightly troubled.

Tori waited for more, cracking her toes one by one to kill time and fill the silence. Her left big toe was stubbornly inflexible, and she had to wriggle it for a bit before it finally gave in and cracked. Then she tried again.

"Any particular reason?"

Jade breathed out through her nose, fluttering a strand of dark hair that had escaped the confines of the hair elastic. Tori noted vaguely that she didn't think she'd ever seen Jade's hair pulled back so completely before.

"I- I was home alone," the dark-haired imposter began finally, shoving her hands, white in the darkness, into the cavernous depths of her sweatshirt pocket and staring determinedly at the floor. "And I was listening to some country music station on the radio - which is bad enough as it is, a freaking embarrassment, really - and some stupid, whiney Taylor Swift song came on."

Tori waited patiently as she moved on to rolling her ankles and stretching the taut muscles of her sore neck. She only just restrained herself from protesting that Taylor Swift was not whiney at all - rather, she was a talented singer and seemed sincere and had yet to do anything stupid and completely screw over her life and career - because Jade actually looked pretty upset.

"And," she continued, "I was listening to it, and I realized-" a shuddering hitch of breath almost like a tearless sob "-that it was like the freaking story of my life."

Jade broke off with a garbled noise that would have been a snort of disgust, had it not had the wavery hitch of a whimper trailing in its wake, and slid down the wall to slump against it, knees pulled up to her chest, head thudding back to stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

Tori abandoned her bizarre contortions as she attempted to crack her stiff back and managed to heave herself out of bed without too much discomfort. She carefully took a seat beside her non-friend, being careful to leave a good couple inches of space between their shoulders.

Up close, she could see violet veins bruising Jade's eyelids, tearless blue eyes and contradictory smudges of dried tears and watery mascara beneath them. She could hear the telltale shiver to Jade's breathing that promised another bout of tears was on the way.

Jade sniffled slightly and shook her head in disgust, her ponytail rustling as it brushed against the wall.

"My entire existence can be accurately summed up in three and a half minutes of self-pitying lyrics and country croonin'," she declared woefully, twisting her lips into something that was one part self-deprecating smile and two parts grimace. "Somebody kill me."

Tori breathed in and tried to summon words. Instead she found the realization that she had to pee - like, really bad. Brushing bodily needs aside, she hesitantly put a hand on Jade's knee, which seemed very pale in contrast to her hand.

"Did you really just use the word 'croonin''?" she found herself asking.

Jade's eye widened slightly and she laughed aloud, startled, before abruptly dropping her face to her hands and bursting into noisy sobs.

Tori's own eyes widened in alarm as she hastily withdrew her hand and surveyed a teardrop, slightly grayed with left-over mascara, in its path from Jade's knee, upon which her cupped hands obscured her face, down to her bare ankle far below.

"I- I mean-"

Jade shook her head and emitted something like an expressive sniffly-snort of mingled mirth and despair, muffled slightly by her hands. "I'm so disgusted with myself. Just, _ugh_. When did I become the canned, spunky-yet-likeable heroine of a real-life high school drama?"

"I kind of always thought of me as the heroine," Tori offered finally. "You always had the look of an antagonist about you, you know?"

A smile stretched Jade's lips by an nth of an inch before it withered away and died. She lifted her head and surveyed the stick-on, plastic galaxy that arched over their heads and said softly, sardonically, "And I guess this is what you call poetic justice, right?"

"Actually," said Tori, putting her hand on Jade's and squeezing for just an instant before hastily withdrawing, lest her fingers be gnawed off, "I'm pretty sure this is called breaking and entering."

"The window was unlocked."

"Oh."

Both girls fell silent. Tori attempted to shift to a more comfortable sitting position before her feet fell asleep completely, and succeeded in finally, painfully cracking her back, at such a volume that the noise resounded down the hallway and caused both the silent girls to dissolve into slightly strained, hysterical giggles.

The laughter withered and died in the tepid stillness of the air, and Tori leaned back against the wall with a tired sigh. She _really _had to pee.

"This is about Beck, isn't it?" she said at last.

Jade's eyelashes flicked down and back up again rapidly. "It's about Taylor Swift," she returned sulkily, "and her stupid non-talent at writing lyrics."

Tori opened her mouth to defend the wounded honor of America's Sweetheart, but Jade continued before she could proceed any further.

"And even if was about Beck, it wouldn't matter anyway," Jade concluded bitterly. "The bad guy always loses at the end of the story, remember?"

Tori tried once more to open her mouth and hopefully even say something useful to the conversation, but just then the door was flung open by a bellowing, wild-looking Mr. Vega, who was clad only in a pair of boxer shorts and was carrying his police badge and gun.

_"No one move!"_

Tori and Jade both screamed. Jade's hand sought out the nearest office supply and flung it viciously. The fluorescent pink stapler soared across the room and imbedded itself, quivering ominously, into the wooden molding of the doorway two inches from Mr. Vega's head.

Tori screamed again, this time in fear for her father's safety, as well as to signal how absolutely appalled she was at her father's apparel… or lack thereof.

Then a door banged open down the hall and Trina came running down the hallway shrieking her queries as to what was going on. She promptly stumbled over her own feet, shod impractically in floofy rainbow slippers, and tumbled in a crashing heap at her father's feet.

She looked up. Mr. Vega looked down. Jade's fingers closed around a pair of industrial-sized scissors and Tori only just seized her wrist in time to prevent the unfortunate, untimely demise of her father.

Mrs. Vega slept blissfully on.

* * *

That night, once affairs had been settled, pants had been donned, staplers had been removed from the wall, and Tori had _finally _relieved her poor bladder, the tanner of the two girls in the queen-sized bed found herself unable to sleep.

Beside her, Jade was very still. Had it not been for her irregular breathing, Tori might have even thought her asleep.

She thought about what Jade had said before, and then her sappy, hormone- and Anne of Green Gables-induced brain began to churn.

Eventually, a handful of words came to her, and she said them before her mind could emerge from its banana-induced fog. "You don't have to be the antagonist, if you don't want to be, you know."

Jade considered this, shifting with a quiet rustle of sheets. "Yeah," she conceded at last, "but then I probably wouldn't be allowed to carry weapons."

* * *

Cat was wearing the most obscenely bright pair of pants that Tori had ever seen in her entire life, even in her adventurous perusals of Trina's eclectic wardrobe. They were electrically pink, very tight, and studded with a surplus of various rhinestones.

Tori found she was unable to do anything but stare. The pants were so bright that her eyes began to water after a few prolonged seconds of gaping.

Andre wordlessly handed her a pair of sunglasses.

Tori donned them immediately, disregarding the fact that they weren't exactly the most feminine accessory a girl could have, and then attempted to voice some sort of an observation.

"Um. _Cat_. Wow. Those are-"

"-Awesome, right?" Cat enthused, bouncing up and down with remarkable agility, considering the sheer height of her heeled boots.

"They're very… bright." Tori offered lamely.

Cat generously took this as a compliment and beamed all the wider. "I know, _right_? I got them yesterday, and I stared at them the whole way home from the mall, and then-" she interrupted herself here with a handful of high-pitched giggles "-I walked into a door because I couldn't see anything! Isn't that hilarious?"

"Ha," Andre emitted a rather stale attempt at a laugh as Cat dissolved once more into ferociously sweet, high-pitched laughter. "Yeah."

"Were you okay?"

The redhead sobered abruptly. "No. I fell down the porch steps and skinned my elbow. See?"

Robbie, unfortunately toting his much-smaller counterpart, strolled up just as Cat had unfastened her Band-Aid - emblazoned cheerfully with several of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - to display a nasty-looking gash on her elbow.

"Oh, no! What happened?" he cried with far too much concern to be convincingly platonic.

"I fell," Cat explained mournfully.

Rex cackled and gestured at the girl's over-bright pants with a wooden hand. "Into a vat of toxic waste?"

She shook her head. "No. Onto a naked garden gnome."

"Why do you have a naked garden gnome-" Tori began.

"Where do you _buy _naked ornamental statuettes?" Andre posed at the same time, looking intrigued.

Cat rolled her eyes. "It wasn't naked when we bought it, _obviously._"

Rex nodded sagely. "I feel you."

"Want me to kiss your elbow for you?" Robbie offered eagerly, already puckering his lips. "To make it feel better?"

Cat drew back, brows furrowing. "That's okay. I don't want it to get infected."

"Good move," Rex put in approvingly. "You don't know where those lips have _been_!"

_"Rex!"_

"Whoa," Jade's deadpan joined the vocal havoc as she strode up, coffee in hand, serenely ignoring the urgent looks Tori immediately commenced to send her way. "I think I just lost vision in my left eye."

Andre held up three fingers in front of the girl's ice blue eyes, wiggling them obnoxiously. "Don't worry, miss. Doctor 'Dre is in the house. How many fingers am I holding up?"

Jade faked excitement, with a smile that was as artificially sweet as a diet Coke, and clapped her hands together happily. "Ooh, I know how to play this game."

Cat gasped audibly and immediately clapped her own hands to obscure her eyes as Jade held up a finger of her own in a gesture that was far from polite.

"Morning!' Beck sing-songed cheerfully, and promptly did a double-take. "Wow. Those pants are, um-"

"-Nauseating?" supplied Jade helpfully.

Beck's mouth quirked a little on the left side, and Tori's eyes flew to Jade's face just in time to see the dark-haired girl's eyes flit hastily away. The blue irises settled on Tori instead and glared icily when she tried once more to communicate that they needed to have a conversation nowwww.

"-bright," Beck finished unconvincingly.

Cat's gushing reply was cut short by the warning bell. Tori hurriedly stooped to swing her bag over one shoulder, handed the borrowed sunglasses back to Andre with a smile of thanks and a cheerful 'see you in homeroom!', then charged full-tilt after Jade and Cat.

The two made an odd pair walking beside each other - Cat in her fluorescent, bedazzled pants with a rainbow of multi-colored ribbons braided through her blood-red hair, Jade in her black bubble skirt over netted tights and combat boots with plum-colored streaks in her black hair - and their conversation, once Tori had reached earshot, was even more bizarre.

"-but he promised that he wouldn't steal your underwear this time as long as I made him pudding!"

"I said no."

"But Jade! You know I get scared when I'm home alone! What if the clown congregation comes back?"

"I thought you said your brother would be there?"

"He's the one who invited the clowns in last time!"

"For the last time, Cat, I would rather have a rash in my retina than ever sleep over at your house ever again, And speaking of retinas, you need to change your pants before you turn everyone blind."

"Hey, guys!"

Tori, out of breath and perspiring slightly, had finally managed to catch up with her bickering friends. Cat turned at her greeting and administered a delighted hug, as if it had been days since they'd last seen each other, rather than minutes.

"Tori! Hi!"

"Does anyone have anything I can gag myself with?" Jade inquired politely.

"Nice to see you, too," Tori shot back sarcastically.

Cat turned to her with puppy-dog brown eyes. "Tori," she began, in a high-pitched baby voice that had Jade grinding her teeth together audibly, "will you stay over at my house tonight? My parents are staying overnight in Canada, and-"

"Ew." Jade wrinkled her nose expressively. "What are they doing there?"

"They're touring a special facility where my brother might be going to live," Cat explained, fingering one of the sparkly key chains hanging from her bag happily as she continued. "It's like college, except there's handcuffs."

"Oh. Kay."

The girls came to a halt in the middle of the hallway where they would all go their separate ways to homeroom. Cat had arrayed her face once more in top pitiful, pleading form.

"_Please? _Pretty please? Puh-_leeeease_?"

An idea hit Tori as the hallway filled with the sounds of slamming lockers and kids hurrying to dash into homeroom before the late bell rang. As a smile spread across her face, Jade groaned aloud.

"Oh, god. She's doing that stupid face again."

"Which stupid face?" wondered Cat.

"This is not a stupid face!" Tori protested hotly, gesturing to the face in question for emphasis. "This is the face of someone who just had a brilliant idea that could save the day and preserve my sleep cycle!"

The bell rang.

"Oh, no," said Jade flatly, scrutinizing the black polish of her fingernails with an air of decided disinterest, "we're late."

Tori mentally screamed a little as her dreams of preserving her seat of honor at the top of the 'Perfect Attendance' list withered and died, but persevered. This was for a good cause. Resuscitating the love life of her best enemy would look good on a college application, too, right?

"Okay," she said at last, "meet at my house at four this afternoon. And bring an overnight bag and every last shred of makeup you have in the house. We're going on a girl's night out!"

* * *

**Please let me know how I should feel about this, because I am at a loss :P **

**And pretty please, don't follow or favorite (lol yeah right) without leaving me a review! This should be about three or four chapter long. Probably. I don't know :) **

**Thanks, guys! ~ Styx**


	2. Chapter 2

**Guys, you're so wonderful ohmygoodness! Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback - keep it coming! And enjoy Chapter Two! It's slightly shorter than the first, but I thought it was funny, albeit a bit pointless. Then again, this whole story's a bit pointless, so... :)**

**Disclaimer: nope**

* * *

**Tori:** robbie i need you

**Robbie**: ...

...  
OKAY  
But... I should warn you... the doctor said the rash might still be contagious

**Tori:** what?

**Robbie:** Uh  
Sorry  
Wrong number?  
Uh  
What's up, toaster?

**Tori:** uh  
ok  
well me and jade and cat are having a girl's night out tonight

**Robbie:** Sounds like a root tootin time  
But if this is an invitation I feel obligated to warn you - the doctor said the rash cream occasionally causes intense night terrors  
Might be disruptive

**Tori:** i think i might have seen a public service announcement about that  
anyway  
i need your help

**Robbie:** Ask away! Come to Poppa!

**Tori:** would you possibly be able to procure for me a couple life size cutouts of beck, like the ones you had of cat? I wont be able to return them though cuz theyll probably be kind of destroyed

**Robbie:** well... I dont really want to be parted with them... Theyre sorta special to me

**Tori:** i'll pay you back

**Robbie:** how so?

**Tori:** Um... money. what else?

**Robbie:** oh  
Well  
Ok  
But treat him nice, ok

**Tori:** I will...cant promise anything for jade though!

**Robbie:** gulp  
Poor Beck  
You'll never again knoww the safety of a life beneath my bed

**Tori:** wait  
you already have a cut-out?

**Robbie:** I have four

**Tori:** ... UNDER YOUR BED?

**Robbie:** well  
Not all at once  
It's a cycle

**Tori:** ...  
I'll be over in five  
Im bringing disinfectant

**Robbie:** That's probably wise

* * *

The consignment store attendant was looking at them a bit oddly, but otherwise Tori had to admit the duct tape was working swimmingly. Jade hadn't said a single nasty word for nearly half an hour now!

Granted, it wasn't by her own will that the cranky brunette did not speak... In fact, she'd put up a vicious fight in the car when Cat and Tori jumped her with two rolls of pink zebra-striped duct tape. Tori was sporting the claw marks to prove it.

But so far she hadn't done anything worse than glare over the duct tape securing her mouth. She hadn't even broken into any vulgar hand gestures... And was that not progress?

"I think you would look prettier if you smiled," said Cat thoughtfully, cocking her head and eyeing Jade's unhappy form critically, "and stopped slumping, because slumping is bad for your posture. And people don't hire people with bad posture." She paused. "Or inappropriate facial tattoos."

Tori personally thought Jade didn't need any verbally abusive body art. Her glare was saying it all - every last R-rated, explicit word - and it was being directed precisely at her.

"I think it looks good," she put in, and smiled forcedly at Jade's glaring reflection in the three-sided mirror. "You look good in actual color."

Jade flipped her off as best she could, given that her wrists were bound together with fluorescent pink tape.

Tori mentally abandoned all semblances of her misguided optimism and got to her feet, sighing. "Alright, Cat, let's try the next dress."

"Kay-kay," said the redhead happily, accepting the next candidate with one hand. The other caught Jade by her bound wrists. "Come on, Jade."

She giggled as the door closed behind the two girls. "This is like having a pet."

There was an inarticulate noise of rage.

"Down, boy... girl," Cat amended.

A beat. Then, "Hey, if both boy and girl dogs go to the bathroom standing up, then... How do you tell them apart?"

Tori snatched up an armful of discarded dresses hastily. "I'll just go... return these... "

Outside, the woman behind the counter eyed her doubtfully. "You sure you girls don't need any help?"

She smiled brightly. "Positutely. Do you have anything like this in pur-"

A high shriek echoed suddenly through the store, causing the cashier to jump and Tori to drop her armful of dresses as she hastened back to the changing room.

There, Cat was jumping frantically up and down, repeatedly flashing her pink-patterned underwear as her skirt's hemline flew up with her movements. "Tori! Help! Jade suffocated!"

The cashier joined Tori in staring at the doorway. "Is she-"

Jade was sprawled flat on her back, hair pooling dark around her slack face. She was still clothed in the dress she'd found so offensive moments before. It was very scarlet against her pale limbs.

Cat wailed, pacing and tugging at her red hair in hysteria. "I murdered her! First Fishy and then Fishy Junior and then my brother's psychiatrist and then Fishy III and now Jade! My whole family should be in jail!"

Tori hastened forward, ripping the duct tape from Jade's wrists and mouth, then inclining her ear to listen for sounds of breathing.

A moment of silence, then-

"GNARRR!"

* * *

Tori was a little perturbed by how unaffected Jade was by her angry face. She'd thought she'd looked pretty intimidating when she'd glared at the mirror, particularly with Jade's claw marks vaguely resembling a badass scar on her chin.

Jade, however, simply perched against the bench built into the stall of the dressing room and raised an eyebrow.

Still, Tori persevered, crossing her arms and wondering how to scratch the itch on her back without losing whatever semblance of ferocity she had maintained. "That wasn't funny."

Jade shrugged, perpetually disinterested. "It wasn't a joke."

There was a lengthy rectangle of reddened skin surrounding her lips, which were quirked with casual amusement and arrogance. Tori glared.

"Jade! Cat practically had a panic attack! I'm probably going to be banned forever from my favorite store! My home away from home! My source of beauty! My-"

Jade cracked her knuckles, waiting.

Tori broke off, scratching crazily at the back of her neck with both hands, then put them on her hips as the maddening itch thankfully lessened. "I'm doing this for _your _own sanity and, like, happiness!"

"Ew. Happiness." Jade was unimpressed.

Tori waited sternly, trying not to twitch as the itch returned with ferocity to her poor neck.

Finally, Jade got to her feet with a sigh. "I want a purple dress and I'm wearing my combat boots with it," she directed resignedly, "_not _those horrible flimsy jockstraps you're wearing on your feet.

Tori only just managed not to grin in triumph. "Deal."

* * *

"Going on a blind date is like opening a bunch of Christmas presents all at once," Cat Valentine declared abruptly, cocking her head and ceasing to rifle through the rack of dresses before her as she smiled in satisfaction at her unseasonal analogy.

Tori stopped in her tracks, a hand floating in midair on its way to caress a silky dress hanging from the discount rack. "Um. What?"

"Or a box of chocolates," continued Cat earnestly, "because you never know whether they'll be sweet and gooey or, like, filled with yucky pecans-

"No. Just... No," Jade's voice admonished, its owner currently obscured by the white wooden door of the dressing room. "You've already coerced me into doing your female bonding thing. But whimsical analogies will literally send me over the edge."

"One time my brother ate a whole box of chocolate-pecan truffles," Cat persisted, undeterred, "because he thought that if he ate enough nuts, his body would get used to them and he'd stop being allergic."

"Did it work?" inquired Tori tentatively. Cat's stories were rather like a box of chocolate themselves - a multitude of wacky, bizarre flavors wrapped in her signature sugary sweetness - and it was often pointless to question their logic or relevance.

Cat didn't answer immediately, as she was busy giggling wildly at the way her dotted dress flared around her legs as she swirled. Mid-twirl, she came to an abrupt halt and answered soberly, "No. He went into anaphylactic shock. And got acne from the chocolate."

"Your brother is a nut," concluded Jade, emerging from the changing room looking wearily disgusted.

"It runs in the family," agreed Cat cheerfully. "I think that's why my dad calls me 'peanut' sometimes."

Tori smiled, then turned her attention to the short, purple number that Jade was currently modeling. "_Dude_."

"We're not friends. Don't call me dude."

"Ooh, Jade! You look so pretty!" Cat cooed, before vertigo got the better of her and she crashed dizzily into the nearest wall with a _thud. _

"Dude, you look amazing!" Tori tried again as Cat mewled in pain and staggered back to her feet. "You should wear dresses more often!"

"Oh, sure," Jade snapped sarcastically, adopting her 1940s movie star voice. "And why don't I take up skipping and diary-writing while I'm at it?"

"I love skipping!" Cat exclaimed, clapping her hands enthusiastically, apparently having recovered from her fall already.

"What's wrong with having a diary?" Tori asked sulkily, immediately thinking of the pink, leather-bound notebook that currently sat in the purse hanging from her arm.

Jade's ice blue eyes widened innocently. "Nothing. If you're Judy Garland."

"You're not," Cat put in wisely. "She's dead."

"Diaries are for pansies," Jade concluded, tugging irritably at the hem of her dress, "and people who like the color _lilac_. Which I don't. I'm taking this off before my eyeballs go kamikaze. Cat, what else do you have?"

"Diaries are good for venting," Tori argued, feeling rather wounded, as Cat loaded Jade up with a new armful of dresses. "It's better than bottling everything up inside you until you explode!"

"Like with pee!" added Cat helpfully.

"I would love that," Jade said flatly through the closed changing room door.

"If you keep it all inside," Tori continued a bit more readily, having thought of an example to make her case, "you end up bursting. And driving to your frenemy's house at two in the morning and breaking into their bedroom and waking them up, crying-"

Tori broke off with a delicate shriek as a hand appeared over the top of the door and hurled a wire clothes hanger at her like a boomerang. She only just dodged in time, and an unsuspecting mannequin received the lethal projectile to the plastic jugular in her stead.

"We swore we were never going to speak of that again!"

Tori smirked and kicked the hanger back under the door, where Jade's pale feet and ankles could be seen. "I don't know what _you're_ talking about, Jade, I was being hypothetical-"

"You were crying?" Cat sounded vaguely horrified as she whirled on Tori. "_Jade_ was crying?"

"I was not!"

"But she had been," Tori countered. "Her makeup was all smeared."

Cat gasped, putting both hands to her mouth in horror and consequently dropping the entire armful of prospective dresses she had been carrying to the floor, garnering an accusative glare from the consignment shop attendant.

"I... had been watching a sad movie!" Jade protested, sounding slightly panicked now, as the other two girls scurried to collect the fallen clothing.

"You _laughed _at _Terms of Endearment_! My mom told me! What could _possibly_ have tugged at your heartstrings so much?"

"Was it _High School Musical 2_?" Cat sighed wistfully. "I was _so_ upset when I saw that Troy had cut his hair that Jade had to take me out of the theater until I could calm down. Remember that, Jade?"

"No."

Cat was bewildered. "You don't? Remember, you had to buy me a whole box of gummy slugs and-"

"Cat, you're not supposed to publicize the fact that we're friends," Jade said bluntly, emerging once more in a deep purple, form-fitting dress.

Tori opened her mouth - either to tease the dark-haired girl about watching _High School Musical_ or to persist in questioning Jade on the previous night's events, she wasn't sure yet - only to close it again.

After all, this whole shopping spree had been organized to help cheer Jade up and get the girls back in the dating game. Starting _another_ violent altercation in a thrift shop might just put a damper on that whole idea, as well as get Tori banned from her favorite consignment store.

Which would be an especial bummer now that she had discovered just how wonderfully easy it was to lift a credit card from her mother's disproportionately massive Grand Canyon of a purse.

"Wow," she said finally. "You should wear purple more often, too."

Jade smiled, just a little. "It's better than the other one," she conceded begrudgingly.

"Go for it," Tori advised, digging out her leather notebook - it's not a diary, ok? It's an _organizer_ - as Jade returned to the stall to change back into her normal clothes and flipping to its most recent entry.

_Operation: Fix Jade_

_Part One_

_- Buy dresses for tonight_

_- Manicure/Pedicure_

_- My house for primping_

_- Dinner at Nozu's_

_- Speed Dating!_

_- Karaoke_

_- Back to house for movie and sleepover_

_- Return Mom's credit card to purse_

_- Blame Trina for its theft_

Next to the first bullet, she penciled in a cheerful checkmark, then turned and high-fived Cat triumphantly.

Cat, who hadn't needed any persuasion after hearing the word 'shopping' and thus was an unknowing participant in Tori's brilliant scheme, giggled. "What was that for?"

She just shrugged and smiled. "I just have a feeling that tonight's gonna be super fun."

* * *

Tori's optimistic premonition was short lived, as chaos reigned supreme at their next stop, the nearby nail salon.

Cat insisted on getting each of her nails - fingers and toes - painted a different, yet corresponding pastel color, which took the greater part of an hour and left her manicurist impatient and irritable.

Tori was pretty sure the poor woman had burst several veins in her neck upon Cat requesting that a tiny, sparkly cupcake decal be painted on each of the primary colors, and rhinestone hearts upon the secondary-colored fingernails.

Later, as her nails were drying beneath the heater, Jade spazzed out and nearly decapitated her poor attendant with a pair of stolen nail scissors when the woman tried to massage her neck.

And then refused to apologize, citing claims of sexual harassment.

Tori, who had gotten her nails painted a soft pink to match the shade of her newly-purchased dress, promptly ruined her manicure face-palming frustratedly.

* * *

Mr. Vega regarded Jade warily as the three girls trooped into the Vega household, laden with weighty shopping bags and towering ice cream cones topped in whirlwinds of rainbow sprinkles.

Ice cream, Tori had explained as her tongue worked busily at depleting the frozen mounds of chocolate, was a crucial part of any girl's get-together and thus could not be neglected today. Oddly enough, no one had disputed this claim, although Jade had suggested Tori's sudden taste for chocolate was somehow involved with a certain time of the month.

All Tori knew was that chocolate seemed to be a much better pain reliever than any pill or banana.

"I notice you opted to use the front door this time, Miss West," Mr. Vega said dryly, using his fork tines to crunch noisily at the shell of the taco on the plate before him as he surveyed his daughter and her friends. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"I notice you opted to wear pants this time," Jade returned with an overly-sugary smile. She dropped her purse on the couch and inhaled the spicy smell of Mexican food greedily before making a bee line towards the array of ingredients spread across the table.

He had the good grace to look slightly abashed, raising his fork in acknowledgment. "Touché."

Tori stared. "Are you eating tacos with a fork?"

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"Tacos are a finger-food!"

Mr. Vega persisted in looking puzzled, so Cat kindly took it upon herself to explain this baffling expression as she, too, began to fill a plate with food.

"Don't worry. That just you means you eat it with your fingers. There aren't actually fingers in finger-food... Unless you're eating chicken fingers. But those aren't _human_ fingers, they're a chicken's, so it doesn't matter-"

"I see," said Mr. Vega, and proceeded to neatly finish off his taco... with silverware. The trio set about constructing their own tacos as well, though Tori very nearly dropped an entire jar of salsa on the floor while gaping at her father, coolly defying the laws of nature with his fork.

"Are you girls setting up here tonight?" he inquired once he had set his dish in the sink. "Or will you be breaking into someone else's home in the early hours of the morning and frightening its occupants out of their socks?"

Jade bared her teeth like some sort of wild animal. "And pants."

"We're going to Nozu's for sushi and karaoke," Tori answered, heaping cheese on her crispy tortilla, "and then coming back here to watch movies and sleep over."

"And don't forget about the speed dating!" added Cat through a mouthful of taco.

Mr. Vega paused so suddenly that it was almost comical, a chocolate-chip cookie halfway to his open mouth. _"What?"_

Tori dropped her head to the table and groaned. Cat patted her head kindly with her rainbow-colored fingernails.

"You're lucky I remembered! I got your back," she assured her, quite pleased to have caught Tori's selectively faulty memory, then giggled. "Like a backpack!"

"Sing the backpack song from _Dora_ and I _will_ shoot you," Jade warned flatly. Cat deflated and closed her mouth.

"You're going speed dating?" repeated Mr. Vega dangerously.

"Yes," Tori conceded. At the look on her father's face, she hastily added, "But it's at Nozu's, and it's a service run _by_ Hollywood Arts to help students get to know each other better! It's perfectly safe!"

"And there's sushi!" put in Cat.

"It's not like anybody's gonna take any interest in Tori anyway," Jade added helpfully, pointing at her brunette frenemy with a taco as if to demonstrate her total unattractiveness in every way.

Mr. Vega considered this, then shrugged. "Fair enough. You girls be careful," he said, and disappeared with his handful of cookies.

Tori pouted at Jade briefly, but soon the two were forced to unite for the greater good, diving across the table to rip the fork from Cat's colorfully-painted fingers when she attempted to emanate Mr. Vega's poor example and eat her taco with silverware.

* * *

**So there you go! Chapter Two! I hope you liked it! **

**I was so blown away by the amazing reviews you guys left... Please continue to do so, especially if you're planning on following or favoriting! Thanks, you guys! :) **


	3. Chapter 3

**Awww, guys, you're everything perfect :) I have to go respond to your fantabulous reviews now. Hope you enjoy this chapter and continue to leave lovelylovelylovely feedback! :) **

**Disclaimer: nope**

* * *

Jade cornered Tori in the upstairs bathroom after dinner.

This was inconvenient on a number of levels, as Tori had snuck off into the bathroom - under the pretense of brushing her teeth - in order to make an attempt at readjusting her nylons, which simply _refused _to stay in place, only furthering Tori's most secret suspicions that she had never actually hit puberty, because her 'womanly curves' were still entirely MIA.

"Too bad they don't make nylons for preadolescent boys," observed Jade dryly, leaning against the doorframe and looking faintly amused, along with her trademark blue-eyed disinterest.

Tori immediately stopped her maneuvers and made a fruitless sort of dive for her toothbrush. "Ever heard of knocking?' she retorted, fumbling for the toothpaste.

Jade raised an eyebrow. "The door was open."

"No it wasn't!"

"Well now it is," Jade said with finality, and smiled smugly like she'd made a good point.

"That it is," Tori agreed lamely, and waited, excruciatingly aware that the waistband of her tights was slowly rolling its way back down her nonexistent hips.

Down the hall, Cat was belting _Little Mermaid_ songs in a questionably Jamaican accent.

"I know what you're doing," said Jade at last.

"I'm . . . brushing my teeth," offered Tori, once more taking up her toothbrush rather transparently.

"I was talking about this- this whole-" Jade gestured vaguely "-_shenanigans_ that you've cooked up."

"You just used the word _shenanigans_," said Tori blankly.

"I did," the other girl confirmed.

"How the mighty have fallen," Tori sang, and made to exit the bathroom on this triumphant note before the waistband of her tights sagged beneath the hem of her skirt, as they were earnestly threatening to do.

Jade blocked her. "I know what you're doing."

Tori sighed, randomly realizing she still had her toothbrush in her hand and wondering how she could manage to dispose of it without calling attention to its presence.

Jade kept glaring. Tori sighed again.

"What _am_ I doing?"

"I don't- I don't actually _know_," she ground out, "but it's _bugging _me!"

"I'm trying to be your friend," Tori said, slightly stung.

When Jade said nothing, she continued a bit more strongly, "_Trying _being the key word here, because you're not making it very easy _at all_."

"Why?"

Tori blinked. "What?"

Jade persisted in avoiding her gaze, instead staring at the icy blue eyes reflected back at her in the bathroom mirror. "Why are you even bothering?"

Tori set her toothbrush down on the countertop slowly as she tried to supply a reasonable explanation for her actions. She supposed she could blame a multitude of factors - the bananas and L.M. Montgomery presented themselves immediately - but in the end the truth was she hadn't the foggiest idea.

"I don't know," she replied honestly at last.

Cat danced into the bathroom then, twirling on bare feet so as to marvel at the way her full skirt fanned out about her. "Look! I'm a ballerina! But don't look at my underwear!"

"Let's go," said Jade firmly, flipping back her hair in a decisive movement and kicking out a booted foot to throw the whirling Cat off balance enough for her to topple spectacularly onto the rainbow duck-patterned shower mat. "Oops."

"Don't look at my underwear!" cried Cat, scrambling to collect herself.

Tori smiled despite herself and followed her non-friend into the hallway.

* * *

_"-and you're lookin' nice! Got me cooler than a bag of ice! Now freeze-"_

Tori broke off rapping in her best imitation of Andre's swaggery-urban-voice as her phone rang.

Jade snorted. "Nice ringtone."

"Nice _face_," Tori shot back as she leant to retrieve her phone from where her purse sat by her feet, moving carefully to ensure she did not fall out of her dress. Its neckline, while definitely stylish, was also definitely on the low side, and especially uncomfortable when coupled with a strapless bra.

"Good one," said Cat with genuinely awed approval. Jade snorted politely once more.

"Hello?"

_"Hey, Tor! What's happenin'?"_

Tori smiled automatically at her best friend's cheerful tone. Beside her in the driver's seat, Jade raised her eyebrows in a knowing smirk and mouthed the name _'Andre_' to Cat.

The redhead, who was still bopping along to her favorite rap song in the backseat, stage-whispered back, "What? Your lips moved, but I couldn't hear your voice!"

Ignoring them, Tori chirped, "Hey, Andre! I'm headed to Nozu's! How 'bout you?"

_"No way!"_

"Uh... Yes way! I'm in the car right now! Are you there, too?"

_"Yeah! Hey guys, Tori's coming!"_

_"Coolio!"_ enthused a voice that was definitely Robbie's.

_"Hey, Tori!"_ called Beck.

_"Ask her what she's wearing," _instructed Rex.

"That's... awesome!" Tori said cheerily, even as her internal sirens went off. "We'll, um, we'll see you guys there!"

_"We?"_ echoed Andre.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, Jade and Cat are here, too," she admitted, trying to maintain an upbeat tone.

"Hi, Andre!"

"Ooh, look, a squirrel. Five bucks I can hit it?"

_"Oh... fiddlesticks_," Andre intoned squeakily. _"My voice just cracked, Tor. Chiz just got _real_."_

Tori snuck a glance at Jade, who was busily trying to run down innocent wildlife and flipping off anybody who dared to honk their horns in protest of such animal abuse.

"They're both mature adults," she finally said unconvincingly. "I'm sure it'll be just fine."

"Jade! Don't hurt the animals!"

_"Ha. Mature. That's a good one," _Andre squeaked, "_Who ever said Tori Vega wasn't funny, huh?"_

Tori frowned. "People don't think I'm funny?"

Jade made a noise of disgust and shook her head mournfully. "Shocking."

"Maybe it's because of all the puns," Cat offered innocently. "Some people are not amused by puns."

"Andre!"

_"What? Uh. Sorry, Tor, I'm- uh-"_

_"Say you're losing connection,"_ offered Robbie eagerly in the background. _"I've been known to break out with some pretty authentic white noise in the past." _

Andre said hurriedly, _"Sorry, Tori, I gotta go stop Robbie from embarrassing himself. He's breaking out with some pretty nauseating-"_

_"-back pimples?"_ prompted Rex.

_"-dance moves. I'll see you soon, chica." _

"We'll be there in a minute," promised Tori, rolling her eyes. "We're pulling in now. See you then."

_"I'll be waiting-" _Andre gulped audibly_ "-fearfully." _

Tori hung up, then sighed and turned to Jade as they pulled into the parking lot of the sushi bar. Honesty was probably the best policy. Maybe with a bit of forewarning, Jade wouldn't react quite as violently.

And maybe lob-tatoes _did _exist…

Tori frowned a little after that, still feeling mildly insulted. That had been funny, hadn't it, the lob-tato remark thing? Why would people say she wasn't funny?

"Um. That was Andre. He and the guys are here at Nozu's, too!" she reported, faking cheer. "Isn't that funny?"

Jade frowned, fingers tightening visibly on the steering wheel. "If I hadn't already done a freaking kickass parallel parking job, I would totally screech on the brakes right now. If this is a set-up, Vega, I swear-"

"It's not," Tori promised vehemently, fingering the hem of her dress nervously, "I swear. And if you're not comfortable with this, we can just go home and watch chick-flicks-"

"The only kind of chick-flicks I like involve the actual flicking of chicks," Jade cut her off flatly.

Cat made a noise of disgust. "You're like an animal abuser or something!"

There was a minute of silence. Then, "Beck's here?"

"Beck's here," Tori confirmed, a sense of dread swelling in her gut.

"For the speed-dating?"

"I think so."

Jade smiled slowly, then chuckled a bit cruelly. "How the mighty have fallen."

She abruptly turned the key in the ignition, killing the motor, and unlatched her seatbelt with a decisive motion. "Okay. Let's go."

She slammed the door of the car and marched towards the entrance without another word, heels of her combat boots clicking imperiously, short purple skirt swishing against her thighs, looking frightening and almost regal in the blotted glow of the streetlight.

As the two other girls followed, Cat reached over and took Tori's hand, regarding her with large, worried brown eyes. "She's going to turn Beck into sushi, isn't she?"

Tori sighed and squeezed the smaller girl's hand. "Yeah, she is."

* * *

"-but all I'm saying is that I don't think it pays to take the risk and exert the energy by being an aggressor, when you can just as easily stay hidden and let the other stupid people duke it out and make targets of themselves!"

"Stop using such big words, man. You're making it sound like you've put thought into this," interjected Andre, looking weirded out.

"I have!" protested Robbie, obviously miffed. "It's an investment for the future! Should the world ever fall to pieces and America be turned into a violent dystopia, I have to be prepared to defend myself!"

"I don't think you're thinking about this right," put in Beck, shaking his head. "It's all about playing the crowd. You've gotta be charismatic."

Andre looked up then, rolling his eyes at the heavens in some sort of prayerful plea for delivery, and caught sight of Tori, who had been gaping indelicately ever since she'd come within earshot of the table. "Tori! Halle-freaking-luia!"

Beck and Robbie looked up then, too, and Beck immediately saw opportunity. "Guys! Get over here and tell Robbie why I'm right."

Jade looked very pointedly at her painted fingernails. "Robbie, Beck's wrong."

Beck sputtered. "Are you telling me you wouldn't rely on charisma over everything else if you got voted into the Hunger Games?"

Jade neatly knocked Rex to the floor and took a seat in the newly-vacated chair. "I'd probably whore just myself out," she said coolly, picking up a menu and inspecting it idly. "Get in good with the Gamemakers."

Robbie stared. "That's a really good strategy," he said, awed.

Tori stared, too. "Is this seriously your plan for the evening?" she asked at last. "To sit here and strategize about the _Hunger Games_?"

Andre shook his head, obviously in pain. "You missed their in-depth analysis on whether or not the end of _Harry Potter_ was lame."

"_Lame_," concluded Jade and Robbie in unison.

Beck, a chopsticks poised midair, looked absurdly outraged. "Have you no heart?"

"Dude, the _power of love_? _Seriously_?"

"It was emotional!"

"Beck cried when he read it," Jade put in dryly, and set about nearly poking Tori's eyes out as she impatiently flagged down the nearest waiter.

"Not true!"

Jade raised a pierced eyebrow. "Dude, I was _there_. You threw the book at me, remember? I have scars!"

"I wasn't throwing it _at you_! And it didn't even hit you!"

"_Emotional_ scars," said Jade haughtily, avoiding eye contact.

Tori looked at Andre, who seemed to be on the verge of tears. "Why don't we just-"

"-Find some breath mints," Andre finished hastily, and practically dislocated her elbow as he grabbed her hand and yanked her away from the impromptu gathering of The Bookworm Society, which seemed to be getting progressively violent.

"This was a terrible idea," moaned Tori as soon as they had found a hiding place in the alcove near the restrooms. Then, "Was that a hint? The breath mints thing? Because I meant to brush my teeth, but Jade cornered me in the bathroom and started making jokes about my hips and-"

"Am I stupid?" Andre blurted.

Tori stared. "What?"

"Nothing."

"What-"

"Hi, guys!" sang Cat, bouncing out of the Ladies' Room and beaming widely. "Did you know there's a person in there, and their entire job is just to stand there and listen to people pee and then give them a towel after they dry their hands? How awesome is that?"

Andre and Tori stared again.

"Really?" said Tori, smiling weakly.

Cat nodded her head exuberantly. "Wouldn't that be a cool job to have?"

"Cool as Kool-Aid," agreed Andre.

They watched Cat bounce off, silent.

"I worry about her sometimes," said Tori slowly.

"I worry about my life choices sometimes," Andre countered, "because everyone else keeps telling me there are normal people out there and I haven't met a _single one_."

Tori frowned. "Ahem."

"I used to include you among the ranks of the sane," sighed Andre, "but then Trina's rash ointment fumes drove you cray-cray and you started thinking it was okay to bring Jade and Beck within two and a half miles of each other without full-body armor."

"Hey! I am not… _cray-cray_!?"

Tori felt very stupid the instant the not-word had left her mouth. Maybe Andre could pull off fake-words with his swaggery, urban voice, but she was just a half-Latina white girl who'd been raised on Wonder Bread and educational television, and it was probably best that she stick to words with a permanent residence in a dictionary.

"I mean, I'm not _crazy_- What- _What are you doing_?"

Andre, whose braided head been slowly but surely tilting as he eyed Tori's plunging neckline with scrutiny, yelped in surprise as Tori batted at his head with her hands. "Whoa, chill, girl. I'm just checking for the arc reactor!"

"Well- well my eyes are up here!" Tori blustered, uncomfortably aware of her low-cut dress all of a sudden and hurrying to block the expanse of bared skin rather fruitlessly with her hands. "And I am _not _Iron Man. Why-"

"There's only two explanations I can think of," explained Andre. "Either you're the new mayor of CrazyTown or you're Tony Stark, 'cause otherwise there ain't no way you're surviving this."

"I am _not _crazy! _Or_ Tony Stark! I'm a girl!" Tori pouted.

"Yeah," agreed Andre rather distractedly, eyes drifting downwards once more, "definitely a girl."

_"Dude!"_

"Whoa, let's keep this bonanza PG-rated," drawled Jade, appearing out of nowhere in typical Jade-fashion. "God, Vega, stop throwing yourself at poor Andre!"

_"What-"_

"She wasn't-"

Jade rolled her eyes and turned away. "You guys are such a cliché."

* * *

"I love this song!" squealed Cat, jumping to her feet and shimmying her hips to a rhythm that was not remotely akin to that of the music. She seized Robbie's hand and yanked him to his feet with a strength that did not seem proportionate to her petite frame. "Come on, Robbie! Come dance with me!"

She scampered off in a blaze of red hair and bouncing skirt, and Robbie swallowed audibly over the booming bass of the DJ speakers.

"Aw, man," Rex complained, "your palms are all sweaty, Rob!"

"That's because I'm nervous!" Robbie hissed, placing the puppet in the seat he had vacated and staring after the tiny redhead, who had already situated herself in the center of the dance floor and was dancing exuberantly, albeit to a beat that was all her own. "I don't think I've ever danced with a girl before!"

"You danced with your Mamaw at your cousin's wedding."

"That doesn't count! She was all… saggy."

Robbie and Rex shuddered in hollow-eyed unison.

"Dude, I'd get out there before the song ends or that guy with the faux-hawk makes his move," Beck advised lazily, leaning over the back of his seat to regard the crowd of dancing teenagers.

Robbie emitted a delicate squeak of fear. "A faux-hawk?" he lamented. "How can I compete with a guy whose hair is all spiky and cool-"

"Guys with cool hair are overrated," said Jade rather viciously as she emerged from the throng of dancers, knocking Rex aside for like the seventh time that night and sitting in the emptied seat. She then gracelessly seized Tori's largely untouched glass of ice water and drained it.

Beck, perhaps unconsciously, ran a hand through his own admittedly cool hair and said nothing. Tori, too, decided against protesting, simply waved over the nearest waiter and asked for a refill.

"_Robbie! Come on!_"

"Coming, cuteness," Robbie called anxiously, and awkwardly shuffled towards the dance floor, looking vaguely constipated and entirely terrified, where he began to wiggle his hips, clad in decidedly girlish skinny jeans.

"Poor guy," Tori sighed, smiling even as she shook her head. Some people were really just too hapless to function normally in society.

"I should shave my head," Andre mused contemplatively, obviously in a world of his own as he absentmindedly shoveled cheese fries into his open mouth.

A beat. "And grow a mustache!" Tori blurted eagerly, reaching across the table to finger one of Andre's braids before positioning it, mustache-like, across his upper lip.

Andre flushed slightly, his lips moving under Tori's fingertips into a wide grin as he agreed, "That would be way classy."

"Remember when you threatened to shave my head?" Beck asked abruptly, eyes fixed decidedly on Jade, who had once again taken possession of Tori's drink and was idly stirring it with her straw, the ice clinking delicately against the side of the glass.

At the question, Jade's lips quirked just the slightest bit into a miniscule replica of a smile. Her eyes flitted down to the table top before returning to meet Beck's defiantly. "Was that the time I wanted you to help me vandalize the petting zoo?"

Beck's eyes lit up in an instance of humor. "I was actually thinking of the time I tried to make you eat a blackberry," he countered, "but I'm pretty sure you threatened me then, too."

"Petting zoos are scary places," Andre said darkly.

Tori noted with a rush of amused affection that her best friend was now absent-mindedly stroking his bare upper lip as if he was already imagining the grand mustache that would soon take up a residence there.

"I know," Jade agreed coolly, sipping at Tori's water. "That's why I wanted to deface it."

"How would drawing _demonic goat cartoons_ all over the walls help make them any less scary?" Beck inquired, incredulous.

She sneered at him. "Don't think we're friends again just because we briefly reminisced about the good old days."

"Why do people think you two are cool?" Andre wondered aloud, looking very much baffled.

"When in actuality your relationship entailed vandalism and kiwi-consumption," Tori added, nodding.

Jade shrugged. "There was never actually any vandalism, thanks to Mr. Stick-in-the-Mud Beckett, and he never got me to eat the kiwi, so."

"We're cool!" Beck protested unconvincingly.

"If I wore chains on my jeans," Andre said slowly, thinking aloud, "and shaved my head-"

"-and grew a mustache!" Tori added insistently.

"Right," he agreed. "If I did all that, and stopped hanging out with you guys, I bet I could unseat you as Mr. Cool Guy, Beck."

Beck laughed once, then his face slid rather disarmingly into sober composure as he eyes Andre appraisingly. The other boy stared right back.

Tori pouted. "But the mustache was my idea! I helped create your image!"

"Well, Tori could come, too," he conceded generously. "But I'd cut the rest of you _loose_. Nothing personal, just _survival of the fittest, baby!_"

"If you stopped hanging out with us, we'd have to find another token black guy to make our happy gang politically correct!" Jade whined. "You're the only person at this table I even vaguely tolerate!"

Andre frowned. "It worries me that I'm flattered by that." Then, "Is that all I am to you guys? The token black guy?"

"Of course not!" pledged Tori loyally at the same time that Jade mused:

"Well, I guess you're also a potential love interest for Tori."

Tori sputtered. Andre choked on his chopstick. Jade sat back on the couch, looking vaguely amused.

"You really think you could out-cool me?" Beck asked abruptly, eyes narrowed. Andre's did the same.

"You know it, bro."

Tori sat back in her seat and surveyed the stare-off in bewilderment, entirely unsure as to whether or not her friends were still merely joking around. Male posturing was a baffling thing indeed.

Andre continued, "I'm the piano man! Girls are suckers for talented guys!"

"I'm an actor."

"So am I! And everyone _knows_ I played the more convincing Swayne twin in Sikowitz's play! My childish lisp was heart-rending and innocent!"

"Um, guys-"

"Shut up, Vega," hissed Jade, looking sadistically satisfied. "This is the most fun I've had all night!"

"-and I think my prom date is a testament to the fact that girls can't keep their hands off me!"

"Ah, but me and Jade were the _it _couple of the school. _And, _we lasted way longer than anything you've had-"

"I renounce ever dating you," Jade interrupted flatly, crossing her arms, "and would like it put on the record that Andre's biceps are way better than yours. So basically he wins."

Andre looked smug. "Thank you, Jade."

She smiled back, a sugary exterior coating an icicle. "Now would be a good time for you to offer to buy me something expensive off the menu."

The smile fell as Andre cleared his throat. "I, uh, I'll go get us another plate of sushi."

Beck's face was set in something akin to petulance that was admittedly adorable, as was reaffirmed by the cooing fangirls at the next table over who were sighing and swooning over his every facial expression. "You can't just _renounce _three years of dating, Jade!" he protested.

Jade batted her dark eyelashes innocently and cocked her head. "Well _you_ certainly did."

There was a moment of silence so heavy that Tori nearly broke out in a sweat. But before she could excuse herself and bolt for the bar, where she could use Andre's thick frame as a shield from the shrapnel and human carnage that was soon to follow, the music was switched off and the DJ announced that it was time for round one of the speed dating to begin.

* * *

**Someone teach me how to write Andre. Seriously.**

**Next chapter's the speed dating and DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA yayomg and stuff. **

**And lastly, my only other Victorious fic - The Daily Grind - has been nominated for Best AU in the Victorious Topaz Awards! Squeee! Obviously I don't stand a chance against all the other phenomenal talent, but it's SO flattering! I don't believe voting's started yet, but everyone should go and nominate their own favorites on the forum! And please go read and review The Daily Grind *plugging* it's an AU Bade oneshot and my favorite work to date! **

**Sorry for the novella-length Author's Note! Hope you enjoyed, darlings, and please review with your thoughts! Also, what would YOUR strategy be if you entered the Hunger Games? I'm not even ashamed to say that Jade's strategy was and is my plan A lol**

**~ Styx**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for all the reviews, you lovelies! I hope you enjoy this chapter - I had a lot of fun writing it. And if you're confused by the quotes-only style I opted to use for the majority of the speed dating section, let me know so I can fix that up for you all! Hopefully the next chapter will be my last, rounding this shebang off with a neat five chapters. I grow uncomfortable with numbers that aren't divisible by five. Idk. **

**Anyway, enjoy! And please review!**

**Disclaimer: respect the pouch. respect it. **

* * *

"Do you believe in love at first sight?"

Tori drew back in alarm as the first of her speed dating candidates dropped into the seat across from hers and peered intently into her eyes. His breath smelled like sushi, and there was a lewdly-beaming Troll Face on his shirt.

Okay, that basically meant he was either a) really super cool or b) really super creepy.

"Oh," she said, visibly flustered, leaning back in her seat to avoid the fishy breath. "I- I don't know. Um, maybe we should introduce ourselves-"

"I know who you are."

She blinked. "You- you _do_?"

He nodded intently, leaning forward even further, to the extent where she could see the pores of his nose, which were in desperate need of some citrus-scented facial cleanser, ASAP. "I know not your name, but the instant you walked into the restaurant I felt the connection. And I _knew_."

"Well that's… flattering," Tori stumbled. She was pretty sure the horror was evident on her face at this point, and she made no pretenses as she scooted back her chair a couple of inches and tried to breathe through her mouth. "But-"

He raised a hand and closed his eyes, dramatically inhaling through his nose with a grimace. "Say no more. I can sense your unease. But fear not, I will wait for you to grow comfortable with our entwined fates. For you, I would wait a thousand eternities over."

He walked away, misty-eyed, without another word.

Tori drained her soda and wondered why she felt oddly flattered by this whole bizarre scenario

* * *

_Ding!_

"So, Andre, you play the piano… Does that mean you like music?"

"Uh, yeah, you could say that."

"I love music, too! What a coincidence!"

"Really? Who's your favorite artist?"

"Well, I know that a lot of people disagree, but I think that Justin Bieber doesn't deserve all the hatred he's been- Hey! Where are you going? We've still got another couple minutes!"

_Ding!_

"-and then we had to drive all the way down to Mexico to rescue him, and we got in trouble with customs for trying to smuggle illegal domestic goats back into the country, but really we weren't trying to smuggle them at all! They just climbed in with us like they were part of the family and no one noticed them! They all just thought my brother had really stinky feet!"

"Uh. Huh. What did you say your name was?"

"Cat. Cat Valentine. And yours is Michael, you told me already, and then I told you that I had a stuffed turtle named Michael, except she was a girl. And you're a boy. Right?"

"Right. And you're a girl."

"You're so right!"

"A really pretty one."

"Oh, thanks… Oh, do you want to hold hands? I love- um, that's not actually my hand-"

"Ow! That girl just threw a water bottle at me!"

"Oh, that's Jade. She's my friend. Hi, Jade!"

_Ding!_

"Hi, Beck!"

"Hi… Um, have we met, or-"

"Oh, no, we haven't. Not until now anyway. I'm Natalie."

"Hi, Natalie. So why don't you start by telling me a little about you, and then-"

"Oh, no. We're here to talk about _you_, Beckett Oliver."

"Um, okay. Uh-"

"Boxers or briefs?"

"What?"

"Inquiring minds need to know! Everyone knows a good journalist always bases her stories on reality, and if I want to get the scoop on Hollywood Arts' resident hottie, I need to get my facts straight!"

"…"

"How about Jade? Tell me about her preferences. Is she a lace kind of girl?"

_Ding!_

"Hello! My name is Robbie Shapiro, and-"

"How far would you be willing to go in a relationship?"

"Rex! Don't ask the poor girl that! This is about getting to know each other-"

"Oh, we'd be getting to know each other, alright… If you know what I mean…"

"Don't click your tongue suggestively! Show some respect!"

"I can do more than just _click _with my tongue… If you know what I mean…"

"Rex! Look what you did! Now she's leaving!"

"Ah, whatevs, man. She was flat as a board anyway!"

_Ding!_

"So you're the infamous Jade West."

"And I have not a clue who you are, nor do I care."

"We could change that-"

"No, we can't. But if you want to prevent me from permanently changing the features of your face, I'd suggest you go buy me a soda."

"Uh… Okay, yeah, sure. Um. How's a Diet Coke sound?"

"What are you saying?"

"What am I… saying? What do you mean?"

"Oh, so you think I'm fat? Is that what this is?"

"What? No! I just- I was just trying to get you a soda!"

_Ding!_

"-but actually it was electrical wires, not spaghetti, so it shorted out the whole neighborhood and made the meatballs taste _disgusting_, and that's why whenever we turn on the lights in the garage, it smells like tomato sauce."

"Oh. Kay. Well, I have a… dentist's appointment, so… "

_Ding!_

"Oh, Andre, hey!"

"Hey, girl! This is my next table; I guess the survey thang found us compatible!"

"Guess that's why you're my best friend! So how've you made out so far?"

"Oh. Uh. You know. None of the ladies can resist Doctor 'Dre."

"Ew. That bad, huh?"

"Worse."

"Poor baby. Well, you'll always have little ol' me!"

"Thanks, Tor. You're my number one girl, you know that?"

"Sure, what are friends for?"

"Yep. Uh. Friends. About that-"

"We should have a secret handshake."

"But—"

"No, legit, we're doing this. Let's go."

_Ding! _

"Are you Robbie?"

"Yes, and you're the next lucky contestant on The Price Is Robbie!"

"… No."

"Awww, crumb cake! Rex, I _told_ you that wasn't going to work!"

"Heh. Sucker."

_Ding!_

"So you're Andre!"

"Yeah, and you're… Hannah?"

"Yes, I am! And you're Andre!"

"Sup! That's me!"

"You're friends with Beck?"

"Well. Yeah. I mean. He's a little beneath me, but-"

"Could you tell him I'm totally into him?"

"Well… But I thought this was supposed to be about, y'know, _us_?"

"Oh… Well, no offense or anything, you're just not really my type. But talk to Beck for me, m'kay?"

"Have I- have I mentioned I'm considering growing a mustache?"

_Ding!_

"Walk away."

"I… can't. This is the next table-"

"Seriously. Walk away. Now."

"Well, no wonder no one's been brave enough to sit through a full session across from you when you're acting like this."

"Don't sit down… I swear, Beck Oliver, if you put your stupid butt in that chair, I am going to- You sat down. Did you not just hear me tell you to walk away?"

"Hi, I'm Beck Oliver. What's your name?"

"We are not playing this game."

"Hi, Jade, it's nice to meet you. Has anyone told you yet that you look really pretty in your dress?"

"Yes, actually. And put your hand down. I'm not shaking it. Beck, if you don't put your hand down, I'm going to- Don't _touch _me! Stop! I am _not _shaking your _stupid hand_-"

"Can we do a fist-bump?'

"If it involves me punching you in the face, then yes."

"So, Jade, why don't you tell me some things you're interested in."

"Why don't _you_ go—"

_"I like scissors and coffee and the Olsen Twins – shhh, don't tell – and rabbits and I have over two-hundred Word Documents saved on my laptop of original plays that I've written, and most of them are really violent but good. And I—"_

"Dude, I do _not _sound like that. And I do _not _like the Olsen Twins, and—and you do _not _get to know that stuff about me anymore—"

"And I'm Beck. I also like Full House. Wow, what a coincidence! Whoever introduced you to that show was probably super cool. Do you like kiwis?"

"I hate you. _So _much. Do you hear that? My voice is literally _quivering with rage_- Beck!"

"What?"

"Stop."

"Stop what?"

"Stop looking like that. You're not- you can't just saunter over here and _look _like that. Not anymore."

"I saunter?"

_Ding! _

"See, that's the part where you walk away and go flirt with some other desperate girl. Have I made fun of you yet for being here in the first place?"

"Save it for later."

"There is no later."

"Why can't there be?"

"Good question."

"Yo, dude, time's up. Mosey on over and let me get a taste of this sweet little mama-"

"I am not your _mama_. And if you talk that way about your _real _mother, then you, sir, have _deep_ psychological problems that should probably be dealt with immediately. _Bye._"

* * *

Tori was in the middle of an absolutely riveting, not to mention extremely informative, conversation about facial exfoliation and its benefits for skin care with her latest candidate, a well-dressed guy from who her history class who had confided blushingly in her that he was angling to get Robbie Shapiro's number, when Jade strode up to her table with a face like a makeup-wearing storm cloud.

"I'm leaving."

Tori jumped up, turning all her attention to her adamant non-friend. "What? Why? Aren't you having fun?"

"No."

Jade's eyes were very flat and her lips turned down just slightly at the corners. Tori found herself on her feet, reaching for the girl's wrist and ushering her into the seat which had just been vacated by skin-care boy.

"Hey, I know a girl in need of some chocolate when I see one," he said, bravely patting Jade on the shoulder and not even flinching when she snarled half-heartedly up at him. "I'll be back in five with some ice cream."

Tori smiled at him gratefully and then turned her attention to Jade. "What happened? What's wrong?"

Jade took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she inhaled, and shook her head in exasperation upon exhaling. "Nothing is wrong. This is just- this is _all _just really stupid, and I get that you were trying to help me… move on, or whatever, but just _stop_, okay? I don't need your sympathy or your company or your _freaking ice cream_-"

_Ding!_

Neither girl moved. The next boy approached Tori's table and immediately backed away in genuine fright at the surprisingly fearsome glare that the Latina girl had mustered.

"You're not over Beck," she said at last, heaving a sigh as she realized that there was really no point in beating around the bush on this one.

"Oh, well done, Catherine Obvious," Jade retorted sharply, fingers threading together, eyes looking anywhere but at Tori.

"Do you _want _to get over him?" Tori pressed.

Skin-care boy minced over, tactfully handed over the dishes of ice cream without a word, and departed just as quietly as he had come. _"Call me, we'll go shopping," _he mouthed, putting his fingers to his ear to imitate a cell phone, before turning away.

Jade stabbed rather brutally at her ice cream and contemplated it a long while before putting the spoon to her lips. "I don't know," she admitted at last. "We were always- Everyone always thought we were going to crash and burn, you know? Because we weren't supposed to work."

Tori said nothing to contradict this, because it had long been a question she herself had entertained, before the stress-induced migraines had persuaded her that perhaps understanding was not worth quite as much as just tired acceptance.

"But now, it's like. I'm supposed to be able to live without him, you know? I'm not- I'm not freaking _Bella Swan_, pining away and shutting out the rest of her life just because her boyfriend left her. I thought I was better than this-"

"It's okay to miss him," Tori said finally, slowly. "It's okay to still be in love with him."

Jade thought about this for a while, letting her slowly-melting spoonful of chocolate ice cream slide off her plate and back into the bowl with a quiet _plop_. "Can we go home now?" she asked at last.

She half-reminded Tori of a petulant child, and as much as she pitied the heart-wrought girl, there was something inside her, the same part that had tingled like a deadened limb when Andre grinned against her lips, that glowed a bit warmer at Jade's choice of pronouns.

"Yes, we can," she said, and got to her feet.

* * *

The car ride back home was largely silent, mostly due to the absence of one motor-mouthed redhead, who had opted to stay behind and catch a ride back to the sleepover later, so as to dance a bit more and to further unknowingly toy with Robbie's rather unstable emotions.

Tori debated switching on the radio, but decided against it, because the silence wasn't awkward so much as just tired.

"I know what you were trying to do," Jade voiced at last. Tori was careful to keep her eyes on the dark stretch of isolated roadway before them as she answered with a cautious:

"Oh?"

"Yep," Jade concluded, popping her 'p' with undisguised relish before fading back to sobriety once more. "So, y'know. Thanks."

The little bit of warmth inside her glowed a bit brighter. Tori rolled down her window and stretched her fingers into the night, relishing the feel of air flowing like water about the slender digits.

"Did it work?"

"I-" Jade broke off, cocking her head and considering this for a minute. "Well, a lot of guys tried to look down my dress and I blatantly insulted Beck several times… "

Tori smiled and offered her hand in a congratulatory bro-fist. "So… mission successful?"

Jade's own smile was a bit begrudging, but she did bump her pale knuckles against Tori's. "Largely," she agreed.

Tori clapped the fingertips of her hands together excitedly and beamed a little wider. "Yay."

* * *

Trina, watching _Celebrities In Car Crashes _with an unhealthily rabid hunger and laughing uproariously with each groan and screech of imminent death, did not seem to notice her younger sister hefting life-sized, cardboard cut-outs of Beck Oliver across the living and out into the backyard.

She had made a brief, vague noise of protest when Tori flicked her older sister's earlobe thrice, but had never averted her eyes from the wreckage-strewn television screen.

"Kay, bye," said Tori lamely. She didn't wait for the response that wasn't coming before shutting the back door.

The night was warm and the immediate area was lit a vague, watery blue from the lights of the swimming pool, but the outskirts of the substantial yard were dark and secluded, and it was there that Tori erected the four Beck cut-outs.

She took a minute to eye their positioning critically, then realized with a shock of horror that she'd left Jade alone in her bedroom, and hurtled back towards the house, leaving the cardboard Becks to smile their winning white smiles at the empty dark.

Jade was, surprisingly, not defacing property. Rather, she was sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor and running her fingers along the uneven spines of the many books that lined Tori's shelves.

"I didn't know you read," she said in greeting, Tori having thrown the door open like a police officer apprehending a suspect on _Cops_.

"I'll have you know," said Tori haughtily, "that I was the first kid in my kindergarten class to know all her letters. The teacher told my mom that I was 'developmentally advanced.'"

"And then everyone else hit puberty and he changed his mind."

Tori ignored that, stooping and attempting to yank Jade to her feet, then shrieking and hurriedly letting go of the girl's pale arm when Jade freaking _hissed _like some sort of angry, not-cute cat (if such a sacrilegious, oxymoronic paradox were to exist.) Jade fell back onto the floor with a muffled thump and an angry yowl.

"_Dude!_ What _was_ that? _Parseltongue_?"

"You did _not_ just make that reference," said Jade flatly, getting to her feet with dignity, as if she had not just frightened someone into flinging her to the ground by _hissing_.

"See? I do _too _read!"

"Yeah, yeah, starshine, whatever you say."

"You would most definitely have been in Slytherin," Tori sulked, starting back down the stairs. Jade followed, looking irritable and toting several books under her arm.

"I'm borrowing these," she declared.

"Who was screaming?" inquired Mr. Vega suspiciously from where he sat with his older daughter on the couch, watching gruesome television intently.

"False alarm," said Jade crisply, tucking the borrowed books into her bag. "Tori saw her reflection."

David Vega's chuckles were the last thing Tori heard before she slammed the back door shut – well, as much as one could slam a sliding door – pointedly behind her.

* * *

"You're joking."

"Not joking."

Jade, standing in bare feet and a purple party dress in the Vega's darkened backyard with a raw egg in each hand, looked stunned. "You want me," she said slowly, "to throw _raw eggs _at cardboard cut-outs of my ex-boyfriend."

Tori shrugged modestly. "Yep."

Jade stared. "The _hell_?"

"Trina read a really good Twilight fanfiction about it," Tori explained nonchalantly. "It sounded really cathartic."

Jade thought about this some more, fingering one of the brown-speckled eggs contemplatively. "How many eggs you got?" she inquired at last.

Tori wordlessly nodded to the Styrofoam stack by her feet, eight cartons high, two wide, twenty-four organic eggs nestled safely in each. "Enough."

"You're a really good friend," Jade said sentimentally after a moment.

And before Tori could react, she had whirled on bare feet and hurled both eggs, rapid-fire, at the Beck cut-outs, standing and grinning so casually against the back fence.

The eggs landed two solid blows to Cut-Out Two's wife-beater-clad torso. Jade stood there for a moment, watching the yellow goo drip runnily down the cardboard. Without looking away, she held out a hand.

"Egg me."

Tori obeyed, then sat back on her heels to watch as Jade threw bullet after unfertilized-baby-chicken bullet, panting hard through clenched teeth and flared nostrils. The first couple throws were hesitant and a little self-aware of the clichéd stupidity of their situation, but soon the girl had established a rhythm, and that was when the cut-outs started receiving some serious face-fulls of eggy justice.

Fisting her hand in the loose grass, Tori inquired casually, "How long were you and Beck dating for?"

Jade held her left hand out for an egg as the right one drew back and released with another spectacular throw that left Beck's easy white grin smeared yellow. "Three years," she said shortly.

"That's a long time," Tori observed, cracking into the second carton hurriedly as she spoke.

"I guess."

"Are you sad that you guys broke up?"

Jade didn't answer, face merciless as another egg exploded messily across Cut-Out Three's fluffy hair. "Egg me."

Tori quickly dodged, holding the egg out of the reach of Jade's groping white hand, and repeated, "Are you sad?"

Jade made a noise of impatience through her gritted teeth and snatched up a new carton of eggs, filling her hands with the brown-speckled ovals. "Shut _up_, Vega."

"Are you sad? Or are you angry? Are you angry, Jade?"

Jade threw another egg. _Splat. _"What do _you_ think, Vega?" she spat. "What does your '_developmentally advanced_' little brain tell you, huh?"

Um. _Offense_.

But Tori ignored it, pressing forward because this is what Trina said the werewolf-girl-person did in the fic, and that it was like super effective and led to great emotional breakthrough and all this stuff.

"I think," she said shrewdly, "that you're secretly sad that it ended. And you're confused, because you don't know who to blame. And then on top of it all, you're angry, because you don't like to feel sad. But your anger ends up pushing people away, and then you _do _feel sad, and it makes you even _angrier_, because-"

"Oh my god, I'm not an _onion_, Vega!" Jade exclaimed, not turning away from her egg-sodden targets. _Splat. _"I don't have all these stupid emotional layers. Believe it or not, I'm not actually all that freaking complicated. I'm pissed off, is all. And you know why I'm pissed? Because my _stupid _boyfriend freaking dumped my ass, okay? I'm not—"

"Whose fault was the break-up?" Tori interrupted, feeling apprehensively that this was a very bad idea. She was playing with fire… and raw egg, despite all Paula Dean's good-natured warnings about the inherent danger of undercooked food.

Inhale. _Splat. _Exhale. _Splat. _

On to the fifth box of unsuspecting eggs.

"Whose fault?" Tori repeated. "Was it your fault?"

Jade hurled another egg. It missed the cut-outs altogether and exploded all over the back fence. Tori winced.

"Of course it wasn't my fault," Jade snapped. "I didn't start doing anything any differently. _Beck_" – _splat_ – "just got it into his head that we were all kinds of screwed up. He never had any problem with our relationship until Sinjin's _stupid_" – _splat_ – "game show made him think there was something wrong with us. Like" – _splat_ – "like we'd _ever _cared about what other people thought before" – _splat _–"before we got the freaking trophy."

"Maybe if you just—"

Jade's hands clenched, cracking the egg she held before it even had a chance to become airborne.

She whirled abruptly, wild-eyed and messy-haired, egg yolk seeping thickly between her fisted fingers, and demanded, "Are you going to sit there and psychoanalyze me all night, Vega, or are you going to help me vandalize Oliver's stupid face?"

Tori suddenly realized how tempting the second option sounded, particularly given the handful of cracked egg that Jade was hefting rather threateningly near her nice new pink dress. "Help you vandalize," she answered lamely at last, and got to her feet hurriedly.

Jade handed her an egg. "See if you can hit the one where he's doing that stupid thing with his eyebrows," she instructed in a business-like fashion.

Tori, feeling stupid, drew back her arm and let loose.

The egg sailed across the yard and smashed spectacularly against Cut-Out One's 'stupid eyebrow thing.'

Tori and Jade whooped in tandem, exchanging a high-five sticky with egg yolk. And from then on mayhem ensued.

"Rapid fire on Number Three! Go!"

"Nice one!"

"Take _that_!"

"Oh my god, double yolk!"

"These eggs aren't even organic! Take _that_, you stupid hipster!"

"Ready? Three, two, one- _Whoa_! That _exploded_!"

"What's that, Taylor Swift? I can't hear you, you _whiney country crooner_—"

"Crooner! Crooner!"

"Ew, ohmygod, it's all over my feet! Ahhh!"

"Don't look so hot now that you're covered in _the contents of a chicken's ovaries,_ do you?"

"Eggs away!"

"Dude, aim at the cut-outs, not me! _Not me_! Aughhh! _Jade_!"

"Let's see if we can knock Number Four's head off-"

_"Whoo! Salmonella!" _

"Did you know," interrupted a third voice confidentially, "that the yellow part of the yolk is actually the dead baby chick—Oh my gosh, what are you guys doing?"

"Cat?"

The little redhead sped across the yard excitedly, flinging her fancy, high-heeled shoes off mid-run. One of them landed in the swimming pool.

"Hi, guys! Sorry I'm late; Robbie tried to punch this guy with fancy hair, who touched my butt, but the fancy-hair guy had a really hard face; he might have broken Robbie's knuckle, so Andre had to drive him to the emergency room, but Robbie passed out from the blood in the parking lot and then the police came, and they made me play this fun game called the breathalyzer _three times _because they said that my laughter was _suspicious_. Also, did you know that the CD Beck was listening to in his car had bad words on it? It was super dirty—"

"Did you say—"

The words froze in Tori's mouth as she finally noticed the second newcomer to the backyard, leaning casually against the side of the house with a quizzical sort of half-smile of bemusement on his face as he took in the scene before him.

Cut-Out Number Four took that opportunity to topple spectacularly just then, taking down its counterparts like egg-sodden dominos with a pitiful sort of final _splat_.

Tori, groaning, dropped the egg she had been holding. It fell to the ground and exploded in a wave of cold, sticky yolk across her dirty, bare feet. Fighting back a yelp, she grinned pitifully. "H-h-_hey_, Beck!"

* * *

**OH SNAP**

**Chiz just got real, y'all :)**

**Tune in whenever I get around to posting the (hopefully) last chapter to see what happens! In the meantime:**

**What do you think will happen/want to happen? Favorite lines? Favorite speed dating sections? Please don't favorite or follow without leaving me a review with your opinion, whether negative or positive! **

**P.S. I posted an absurdly lengthy old-timey!Bade oneshot the other day. Everyone should go check it out and review plzktnxbye**

**Review! Thanks, guys! ~ Styx**


End file.
